


Blood in my Veins

by BlurbMonster



Category: The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, I refuse to edit this, Parabatai Bond, Vampirism, angsty jonathan is angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 05:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30100656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlurbMonster/pseuds/BlurbMonster
Summary: Jonathan should've seen this coming(I gave Jonathan a childhood friend. For reasons. I made myself sad.)
Relationships: Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern & Original Male Character
Kudos: 1





	Blood in my Veins

With every beat of his heart, Jonathan feels the burn of his blood. Sometimes he wonders if it can really be called ‘his’, the parts from hell that seem to fight his body even as it heals it. Sometimes he wonders if the pain is drowning out everything else he could feel. Sometimes he wonders if there’s anything to drown out.

Still, the burn helps in many ways. It means he is not weak. Not as weak as the angel boy who he knows lives tucked away in the luxury of a mansion. Jonathan doesn’t need that. Jonathan has molten lava in his veins and doesn’t feel the cold of the valley, not even in winter. He hadn’t realised how much it helped until Valentine brought him a sparring partner. 

He was a year or two older than Jonathan, bigger and growing long, gangly limbs where Jonathan had yet to hit his first growth spurt. He only had a few smatterings of runes though, Jonathan had more. And he still hadn’t killed his first demon. Jonathan had sneered when he’d heard that and accused the Clave of coddling their warriors. Valentine had smiled when he’d heard that. The older boy hadn’t. Still, he was strong and Jonathan enjoyed sparring with someone he could occasionally beat. Valentine didn’t believe in pity wins.

At night, they curl on the ground and hope that the aching in their bodies recedes in time for tomorrow’s training. This was when his new companion was annoying. Admittedly, he’d gotten better. For the first month after his arrival, he’d sob all night, every night until he finally passed out from exhaustion and it’d severely cut into Jonathan’s own sleep. The sobbing had stopped, but the shivering had not.

One night, Jonathan stared at the other boy, watching his shivers grow in intensity as the warming rune faded. For some reason, the boy always drew that rune on the same part of his arm, creating a thick thatch of scar tissue so dense that it looked like a natural patch of discolouration more than it did a collection of a repeated, delicate rune. It reminded him of his own skin. He’s not sure why, but on that night, when the rune finally faded to nothing, Jonathan got up and lay down next to the other boy.

He’d tensed as Jonthan approached- three times today he’d been knocked to the ground with a knife to his throat and a toothy grin over his face before he’d managed a win of his own- but not flinched away. The burn of his blood must still be feelable through his skin since the older boy shuffles closer after a few beats of silence. That’s good, maybe the strength will leak into him too. A weak sparring partner is no use to anyone.

This repeats night after night. They lie, barely touching, next to each other in silence. It changes something between them. They sit together to eat now, talk a little. The other boy’s name is Finley. 

He starts to wander aimlessly on nights when the other is on missions, unsure and unanchored. He wonders if the other boy does the same when he’s away. 

One night, Finley slowly but surely wraps himself around Jonathan until they’re touching more than he’d thought two bodies could. Suddenly, he’s gripped with the fear that his stringy muscles and thin skin aren’t enough to protect the other from the lava in his veins, that his touch will scald him. Then the other’s arms tighten around him and Jonathan lets himself sleep.

They go on missions together. It’s a delight, they’re so used to fighting each other that they can cover weaknesses before the other even notices he made one. Sometimes, Jonathan forgets they’re not sparring and attacks Finley with the ferocity he brings to every match. The other never seems to hold it against him. Jonathan decides to hold it against himself, if Finley’s going to be lazy about it like that.

Finley grumbles about Jonathan never being cold. Jonathan points out that it’s probably the demon blood. Finley blinks, utterly baffled. It’s an awkward realisation, that the other boy doesn’t know exactly what he’s cradled so close, and Jonathan jitters as he explains. Finley stares up at the stars while he listens. “So that’s how you can do that jumping stuff,” he says when Jonathan goes quiet. Then he rolls his head to look at the other again and goes to sleep. Jonathan stares at him a bit before copying.

A few days later, Jonathan shows him how he can make the blackness of his pupils bleed into and consume the rest of his eyes. “Cool.” Finley grins and Jonathan feels the tips of his fingers tingle strangely. It’s nice.

A year after the boy arrives, Valentine gives them both a script and has them perform a ritual. Afterwards, Jonathan stares at the parabatai rune on the other’s torso. He flicks his eyes up to meet the other’s and feels a thrum of… something through the matching rune over his heart.

It’s strange, the feelings from that rune. Perhaps it’s the rune’s proximity to his heart that allows it to cut through the searing fire. At first, he can’t tell what’s what, but soon he learns to recognise the big ones: sadness, pain, determination and… warmth. The last one’s almost always directed at Jonathan. He’s not sure what that means.

He’s not sure what he sends Finley. He wonders if the rune is just a bleeding wound of burning and maybe it is. Or maybe- He thinks of how the older boy suddenly seems to be able to flow with and predict Jonathan’s every attack, every stilted conversation stopper. Maybe something’s going through. 

They fight, they sleep, they fight more. Endless training and missions and studying. Jonathan grows. He’s not as broad as Finley has filled out to be, but he’s lankier and no less strong. Stronger, actually, but that’s more to do with blood than muscle. They don’t do missions separately anymore, haven’t for years. It feels deeply wrong to be separated for that long. He knows Finley feels the same way.

Jonathan thinks he expected it. Somewhere in his mind tickled the stories about Lucian Greymark, but maybe he just hadn’t wanted… The point is he shouldn’t have been surprised when Finley had to leave with Valentine for a day. Shouldn’t have been surprised when the parabatai rune pulse with horror then went numb. Shouldn’t have been surprised when Valentine led him to a fresh covered grave and set up a malachi configuration around it. Shouldn’t have been surprised to watch Finley claw his way out of the earth, eyes blank and hungry. Shouldn’t have been surprised when he lunged. But he was.

Valentine yelled not to kill it yet and somewhere in the dull fuzz of his brain sparked the instinct to obey. Obey no matter what. So Jonathan simply pinned Finley under him, watching as he snapped and snarled desperately at his throat. Valentine threw some blood bags at the vampire and Jonathan let him up to devour them.

“Watch.” Valentine said simply. So Janathan did. Watched the blood smear and spill and splatter.

Gradually, Finley seemed to come back to himself, staring at his hands, the empty bags and then at Jonathan. He ignored Valentine completely, eyes fixed, despair and resignation painfully obvious in them, as Jonathan listened to the man’s ramblings.

“- you see what I couldn’t. That, though it wears the skin of someone you once knew, the demon blood-” Valentine didn’t seem to notice his mistake, but Finely definitely did. His mouth, full of fangs snapped at the man. He sneered and gestured at the bloody, toothy mess, “- has completely overcome the human. The nephilim. All that is left is a monster. A shadow to be hunted.” He presented a blade to Jonathan.

Just like that, the fight and anger drained out of the vampire. “Jonathan.” There was no accusation or pleading in his tone and Jonathan longed for the parabatai rune to spark back up and tell him… Or, better yet, tell Finley what he’d never be able to express, not with the burning in his veins, not with Valentine at his shoulder.

He knew a stab through the heart wasn’t what was wanted here, knew that wouldn’t prove… whatever Valentine wanted to prove. Jonathan longed desperately for a falcon to snap the neck of. How could that compare to slitting the throat of the other half of your soul? He wanted to be angry, wanted to hunt down the angel boy, but Finley’s blood was draining so fast and pain was overwhelming his face and-

“Good. I’ll give you time to mourn.” Valentine said and walked away through the malachi configuration.

Jonathan hauled the gagging Finley onto his lap, curled around him and waited for dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> Im sorry. I know the writing's bad. I will not edit


End file.
